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Update on D600 dust issues

I have followed with great interest the dust/oil issues associated with Nikon's D600. As someone who took Nikon's offer on the discounted combo package with the 24-85 lens this past Christmas, I have tried to maintain some vigilance especially through Photo.net on posts and articles concerning the dust issues.
My own experience is that the copy I received from Amazon had no accuations on it and to date, at around 600 pictures, I see no dust or oil. I would like to hear others recent experience.
From the Lensrentals blog, it looks like there may have been some refurbishing by Nikon on the newer D600s. I enjoy the camera, but I hope I did not fall for a good price on a suspect product.
Thanks so much-
Grear Howard

Responses

If you have 600 activations and you havent noticed a problem, I think you are in good shape. I purchased mine shortly after it was released and it had a significant amount of oil that could be see at f5.6 and smaller. I noticed it on the first 10 shots out of the box. Since I cleaned the sensor, I have accumalted about 2000 activations and it hasn't been a problem.

I have bought my D600 about two months after its release and did not encounter any dust or oil spots. As I have read a few reports on the dust/oil issue I took test shots with f16 or f22 against a homogenous background about once a week. I didn't see any dust spots even with extreme contrast enhancement in Photoshop I gave up this practice after a few weeks (> 2000 total shots on my D600). AFAIK there is no statistical data how many D600 were affected and which efforts have been necessary to get the problem fixed. I'm not sure if a handful frustrated users generated too much buzz...

Update on my update-
The very day I posted that question concerning the spots on the D600, I took sky pictures at high F stops (f16,18,22). And sadly, the spots were there!
I called Nikon support and they sent me an email detailing what I could do to clean it and if that did not work, send them the pictures with the spots.
I completed the low-pass cleaning as indicated, but alas, no better. As I had a bit of time from Amazon to return, I have returned the D600. My lens collection is rather small- as is my bank account, so I have gone back to DX and ordered a previously owned D300s. Thanks to all for the input given to this discussion.

You did not try cleaning it before returning it? If you have a DSLR you need to expect to end up with dust on the sensor at some point in time.
Granted that in the case of the D600 it may be more so if you go by the reports of some on the forums. I am not saying it is not a problem with the D600 but may be is not a major long term issue - I think this problem may have been over amplified by some.
Particular by those who are moving to FF for the first time - the larger the sensor the more chance of dust of settling on it after all.
I am about to find out myself since I have a D600 on order. I am however prepared to clean the sensor if need be.

I bought a D600 on November 16 from B&H and got it shipped to a friend's place in NY. I met with my friend 10 days ago in Europe where I live and finally got my D600. The D600 was a replacement of my old D300, I tried it inside my apartment in low light and it delivered great results.
Yesterday I finally had some time to try my new D600 out in the field and as soon as I tried the camera at f9 I saw a light spot on the upper left corner. As I was aware of this dust/oil issue I tried to shoot the blue sky at f/22 and a ridiculous amount of dark spots showed in the left corner.
I repeated the test and there they were, no sharpening or increased contrast. Unfortunately B&H won't take my camera back as their 30days police for return is expired. I also noticed that the AF in low light is pretty poor.
I am so pissed at Nikon that you can't imagine. First of all they rebate the prices of 500 USD in the ark of 30 days on a new released product. We all expect a New D700s or a D400 and they give us a D600 that one on two has a oil spots issue. I can promise you that this the last camera I will buy from Nikon.

I bought a D600 on November 16 from B&H and got it shipped to a friend's place in NY. I met with my friend 10 days ago in Europe where I live and finally got my D600. The D600 was a replacement of my old D300, I tried it inside my apartment in low light and it delivered great results.
Yesterday I finally had some time to try my new D600 out in the field and as soon as I tried the camera at f9 I saw a light spot on the upper left corner. As I was aware of this dust/oil issue I tried to shoot the blue sky at f/22 and a ridiculous amount of dark spots showed in the left corner.
I repeated the test and there they were, no sharpening or increased contrast. Unfortunately B&H won't take my camera back as their 30days police for return is expired. I also noticed that the AF in low light is pretty poor.
I am so pissed at Nikon that you can't imagine. First of all they rebate the prices of 500 USD in the ark of 30 days on a new released product. We all expect a New D700s or a D400 and they give us a D600 that one on two has a oil spots issue. I can promise you that this the last camera I will buy from Nikon.

I bought the D600 in the first week when was delivered to the Canadian market from Henry's. And right away I went to Sedona and Page (Arizona) for some landscape photography. I was not aware at that time of the issue and when I come back I observed some darker wide spots (visible on sky) on a few short movies I did it. Hence, I started to pay attention to my pictures and suddenly the same spots were visible and the last days of photo sessions showed a large number of spots. I bought the visible dust swabs to clean it and to my surprise it did not helped. I bought the solution and with the swab being wet I clean the CMOS and spots were removed. After, I went to Sweden and this time I was prepared with swabs to clean the CMOS whenever the issue becomes visible. To my dissatisfaction i realized that I am losing the battle because almost after 20 to 30 shots the spots will be back. Sometimes will be dark small spots (believe to be some black inside liner that was degrading), but mostly will be oil splashes of different sizes. Some suggested that after 3K clicks the problem was gone; hence, i try it and I reached 6K and still the same accumulation of spots after 50 to 100 clicks. I had enough: contacted Nikon, presented to them the original pictures (no post process) and the variant processed with Photoshop and Nik filters that highlighted the problem. I was asked to send the camera to Nikon Canada for a "fix". Henry's did a great job preparing the papers, and sending it at their cost to Nikon Canada. After 2 weeks I received the camera back and on the order was stated "front body and CCD cleaned. Checked and tested". Hence, no replacement or fix:(. But, i tested it for a series of 500 clicks and i observed only a few oil spots (4 to 6) that are manageable using Photoshop. I am not sure what they have done to it in reality, but so far is a trade I can leave with it considering that this is a great camera. And could have been one of the greatest Nikon camera if it was not for this problems. Note:
1. the spots are visible when you are shooting mostly sky and everyone reported them on left side to center of the picture.
2. My previous D200 and D300s had never their CCD wiped wet or professional cleaned and very few times had to use a blower for dust accumulated due to lenses changes.
I love Nikon and I am a believer in their technology, but this time something went wrong or in engineering or in manufacture. And the fact that Nikon keeps quite suggest either that they do not have a permanent fix/solution or that it is too expensive to declare an official recall.

Many photographers are happy with this camera and don't have any issues with the dust problem. I have purchased mine two months ago and didn't encounter any dust problems. I am in the habit of cleaning the sensors of my cameras frequently so this might have solved the problem, if there was one in the first place.

I also think that this problem has been blown out of proportion. I have posted an article http://www.squidoo.com/nikon-d600-for-sale wherin I share my experience with this camera should anyone is interested to read.